10 Apps That Appeal to the Best and Worst in Human Nature

Developers keep spinning out new programs for our smartphones, offering small insights into our culture with every new title.

MINYANVILLE ORIGINAL According to a recent report by Nielsen, the average smartphone contains 41 apps. While the research shows that the most popular apps are familiar names such as Facebook (FB), YouTube (GOOG), and Gmail, there are now more than 500,000 apps available for download in Apple's (AAPL) app store. While some of them promote altruistic actions, there are also many apps out there that play into our darker, more sinister sides.

Five Apps That Appeal to Our Best Instincts

1. Find Recycling
Everyone knows recycling is an easy way to help out the planet. The problem is, not everyone knows where to find the nearest recycling location. It's one thing to recycle basic products such as scrap paper and glass bottles, but where do you take that ancient television or outdated cell phone? Cue Find Recycling, a $0.99 app by Elbatrop that helps you locate your closest recycling point in 15 different countries, including Germany, France, and the US. A map capability is built into the program to further simplify the process.2. Charity Miles
Charity runs are no longer the only way to raise money for good causes. With Charity Miles, a new, free app, you can log miles for the charity of your choice even during your solo runs. Just take your smartphone with you and the app tracks your distance, donating $0.25 for every mile run and $0.10 for every mile biked. Charity Miles offers nearly 10 different charities to which you can choose to contribute, including Autism Speaks, Habitat for Humanity, and The Nature Conservancy. The app was founded by Gene Gurkoff, who previously worked with the Michael J. Fox Foundation to raise money for Parkinson's Disease research.

3. Pay It Forward
Created by the Worldwide Pay It Forward Movement, the Pay It Forward app allows you to make a positive difference in the lives of those around you. For $0.99, the app sends daily suggestions of ways you can spread kindness. An example: "Leave a copy of a really great book you have read in a café for someone else to enjoy."

4. Eat Local
Eating seasonal, local foods is an important part of living sustainably. Developed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Eat Local is a free app that allows you to find your nearest farmers market -- with data on more than 5,200 farmers markets in all. The app also offers recipes for in-season produce, as well as nutritional info and tips for storing and preparing local foods. Similar apps include Seafood Watch, which helps determine the sustainability of your favorite fish.

5. DonateLives
Have you always wanted to be a hero? DonateLives, developed by Raymond Cheung and his team of developers in 2009, is a free app that lets users be just that. The free app directs you on how and where to sign up as an organ donor in your state, giving you the opportunity to save one or more lives with a simple signature. Unfortunately, the app has been downloaded less than 1,000 times.

Five Apps That Appeal to Our Worst Instincts

6. CATE
Developed by CATEapp LLC, CATE stands for "call and text eraser." For a one-time purchase of $2.99, the app allows you to "instantly clear your call log and text messages of all communication between you and pre-selected contacts." CATE can also switch off all audible and visible notifications and store them inside the app, which can be masked by any one of over 50 various icons meant to represent it. The app's tagline? "Love is blind. We keep it that way." How romantic. (See Related: New App Makes Adultery So Much
Easier.)

7. DateMate
Having trouble keeping track of your endless trysts? Enter DateMate, which, for $2.99, allows you to "plan, track, and report on your relationships." The app, developed by MEDL mobile, allows you to enter details about each of your romantic partners, as well as rate each date and sexual encounter you have. Once you have enough entries, the app is able to chart your dating and sexual trends. (See More: Handy iPhone App Measures Date-to-Sex Ratio.)

8. Girls Around Me
Although this app was pulled from the Apple Store earlier in the year, Girls Around Me remains available online and has received significant attention for its stalker-like capabilities. The app allows users to locate both men and women in a given area by pulling data from Foursquare. If someone has recently checked into a nearby location and has a public Facebook profile, their page will show up on Girls Around Me's "radar." While this app can be used to find members of both sexes, it is clearly targeted towards men, as the splash screen illustrates. John Brownlee of Cult of Mac describes it as "a radar overlaid on top of a Google Map, out of which throbs numerous holographic women posing like pole dancers in a perpetual state of undress." Many have expressed concern over the dangers this app could present to women if it were to get into the wrong hands. Girls Around Me developer i-Free Innovations has since defended the app, saying it only provides data that is publicly available on Foursquare and Facebook.

9. Butt Analyzer
Available on Google Play, this free app advertises the ability to "rate" someone's attractiveness based on the curve of their butt. Butt Analyzer works by taking a picture of someone's derriere, tracing the "contour," and voilà! The app will rate said derriere on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the least attractive and 10 the most. According to the developer, YauSoft, the app "supports both men's and women's butts."

10. #1 Cheat Words With Friends Edition
For only $0.99, you can not only win your next Words With Friends game -- you can "DESTROY your [opponents]!" The #1 Cheat Words With Friends Edition, developed by the aptly named "Cheat Master and Friends Words Cheats LLC," scans your game for you, with no letter input needed on your part. Is nothing sacred?